The Future of Consumerist

Over the last twelve years, Consumerist has been a steadfast proponent and voice on behalf of consumers, from exposing shady practices by secretive cable companies to pushing for action against dodgy payday lenders. Now, we’re joining forces with Consumer Reports, our parent organization, to cultivate the next generation of consumer advocacy.

Stay tuned as Consumerist’s current and future content finds its home as a part of the Consumer Reports brand. In the meantime, you can access existing Consumerist content below, and we encourage you to visit Consumer Reports to read the latest consumer news.

slogans

Back in 2014, Great Harvest Bread Company trademarked what it thought was a neat slogan: “Bread. The Way it Ought to Be.” So when fellow baked goods peddler Panera Bread introduced its slogan, “Food as it should be” in 2015, that hit a little too close to home for Great Harvest. [More]

It’s no secret that we’re fans of fanning the flames of humor around these parts, especially when it comes to getting down to the nitty gritty of what companies are really about. Which is why we were tickled to see the work of Clif Dickens, which, much like our friend Lisa Hanawalt, cuts right to the heart of what companies should really be saying with their slogans. [More]

If Don Draper had a better sense of humor and wasn’t so busy suffering existential crises whilst being handsome/drunk*, he probably would’ve wanted to hire Lisa Hanawalt. Because in a time when even companies themselves are engaging in bouts of self-mockery in order to entice disillusioned customers by making them laugh, Hanawalt’s delightful doodles of alternate slogans are about a million percent better than what’s out there. And by better I mean, way more hilarious. [More]

The cameraphone of reader Thomas points us to a classic American slogan that has been bedeviling consumers for decades, “Everybody doesn’t like something, but nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.” It is shortened on this truck to “Nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee.” Huh? Isn’t that a double negative? Yes, and it was planned this way. [More]

Nick Padmore at A List Apart has produced an extraordinarily nerdy and detailed breakdown of the various qualities of 115 of the most successful “copy shots” in advertising history—you know, those short phrases like “Where’s the beef?” (1984) or “Don’t leave home without it” (1974) or “it takes a licking and keeps on ticking” (1956) that you’ll carry with you to your grave, unless you develop some sort of “good” Alzheimer’s that only wipes out the commercial jingles part of your brain. (Somebody assign a stem cell researcher to that!)

AT&T is no longer claiming to be the network with the “fewest dropped calls,” according to a company insider. The assertion was widely panned as a lie:

The ad campaign, which launched last March, was based on a Telephia report that actually noted AT&T Wireless (then Cingular) did not have the most reliable network in New York, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles. A recent JD Power report gives that honor to T-Mobile in most markets. Similarly, a report from Consumer Reports placed Cingular/AT&T at the bottom of their rankings for reliability and satisfaction.

We wrote last week about “SayWA,” the new Washington state travel slogan that was the product of an ecstasy-fueled 18 month brainstorming session by 32 marketing geniuses. What sort of powerful emotions does the SayWA message evoke? Nothing besides puzzlement and the nagging suspicion that someone just came up with a me which actually infects the listener with a highly contagious form of mental retardation.